Bridie Smith
Scientists confronted the crime
scene before them with disbelief. There was no mistaking it. Precious lives had
been lost here in Queensland's vast, isolated desert. But what or who was
behind this outback murder-mystery?
Days earlier ecologist Steve
Murphy had knelt down and peered through a scrubby spinifex
tunnel to a nursery stocked with two eggs.
Ecologists from Bush Heritage Australia
are working to create a safe place for the one-of-a-kind parrot found in
Queensland.
This was the first time since the
1880s that anyone had seen an active nest belonging to a night parrot, one of
the world's most elusive birds.
It was a big deal. The eggs
promised new life. And new life promised a boost to the prospects of the
endangered night parrot, which until 2013 hadn't been recorded for 75 years and
was believed extinct.
But the promise would never be
fulfilled. Six days later Dr Murphy discovered the nest had been raided; the
contents of both porcelain-white eggs plundered.
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